Everything is so politically sensitive in that kind of situation. Putin is a man who doesn’t flinch over rolling a few heads, and he is under no obligation to Time. In fact, he did abruptly end the interview before the dinner they had scheduled was complete.

So you have to realize that Putin is parsing what he says to the American press, and then after that the reporters and editors parse through it too.

The reporters are under the gun, the editors are thinking about the political status quo as much (or more than) they are thinking about an accurate portrayal of the man, and Putin is only going to be candid to the degree he feels it furthers his own image.

So that’s what you get. The prescription for the reader is to take it with a big grain of salt.

Oops - except they do. (Clean up Bush’s grammar in quotes, that is.)

But if most subjects said something silly, the journos would have the right to leave it in. But funny, apparently the rules generally work in their favor.